Precision In The Field

Proper training and accountability have made
Precision Plumbing Services a success.

Matt Morse, owner Precision Plumbing/Kangarooter

I’m in Lombard, Ill. - not too far from my own home,
actually - standing in the call-taking part of the new offices of Precision
Plumbing Services. I watch as owner Matt Morse
flips through the customer survey cards he’s holding, his concentration so deep
on the small stack he seems to forget I’m there. “We get about six of these
sent back each day,” he says.

Most of the cards I’ve seen so far (slyly
from over his shoulder) have had excellent ratings; all satisfied customers
willing to refer Precision’s services to friends and family.

“See, this
one had a lower rating,” he points to a thumbs-down sign circled on the card.
(The company has eliminated the guessing-game of knowing for sure if customers
are happy by using a thumbs-up and thumbs-down image.)

Morse’s brow furrows a bit as he reads the
customer’s comments: “Technician said he would arrive during a 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.
window; didn’t show until 5.”

He taps the card and looks over at Ed
Stewart and Jackie Mercer, his customer service
representatives responsible for handling customer relations and scheduling.

While
this one card’s lower rating has concerned him - after all, Precision’s tagline
“Is Today Soon Enough?” is taken seriously - I’ve seen enough this day to know
Morse has full confidence in his team, and Ed and Jackie will take care of any
problem.

They will
first look into the situation: Why was the technician late? What were the circumstances?
Then they will contact this customer - and many others today through the course
of their follow-up calls with each Precision customer. Their commitment to
quality helps this blossoming plumbing company on its path to success.

Perhaps Precision’s CSRs will offer a simple
heartfelt apology to the unsatisfied customer. Perhaps they’ll go a step
further and mail a Lettuce Entertain You gift certificate for the customer to
enjoy on the company’s dime. Whatever. They will do what it takes to turn that
customer’s frown upside down, for customer service is No. 1 at Precision.

And the
CSRs are fully empowered to fix any wrongs right over the phone. Why, you may
ask, would an owner give such “power” to a CSR? One word: accountability. At
the heart of Precision is Morse’s team of trained, consistent and dedicated
employees who are held accountable and responsible for their actions. Each one
knows the score and their goals, and each is committed to being on a winning
team.

“I’m my own worst critic,” Morse tells me.
But he emphasizes that customer service affects everything. “If there’s a price
complaint, we skipped a step in explaining the value of our services. Maybe we
pushed where we could have done some more pulling.” At Precision, everything is
presented to the customer first, and the technician is up-front with his services.
All this establishes trust and builds value, and eventually return customers.

But let’s back up a bit for a little company
history and humble beginnings. It will probably sound familiar; Morse’s journey
started very much like any other plumbing business owner’s. However, you’ll
find this story’s ending has yet to be written, as Precision continues to work
toward attaining the goals of its visionary leader.

Can You Dig?

Fresh out of high
school, Matt Morse was looking for something to do. Not too thrilled with the
idea of college just yet, but still needing a job, he ended up working for a
plumbing contractor in Wheaton, Ill.

“I remember the boss saying to me, ‘Can you
dig?’ So that’s what I did; I dug holes and ditches, all the while receiving
plumbing training on the job.” Morse recalls being fascinated with sewers. And
this was before cameras and other technology. It was cable work, and it was
dirty, and Morse loved it - a character trait that will aid him in the future
in Precision’s break-out Kangarooter drain cleaning endeavor (more on that
later).

Soon,
after a stint in junior college and then away, Morse found he wasn’t enjoying
school. But the company he dug for eventually closed up shop. “He was a great
guy,” Morse says fondly of his former boss, “but not the best businessman.”

As luck would have it, another older
employee of the same company had tried his hand at his own business, too, but
things hadn’t turned out the way he’d planned. Both now faced unemployment.

Spurred on by a friend, who reminded Morse
that he’d always said he wanted to start his own business, Morse and his older
co-worker decided to open up Precision Plumbing again, starting with a single
van and tools working out of a garage.

They soon
had a growing client base, and in 1995 moved to office space in Wheaton - a
commercially-zoned residence that shared space with a dog grooming business.
That’s when they hired their first office person. From 1996 to 2000, during the
housing boom, Precision completed new construction projects and some plumbing
service with about a dozen other employees, including Mike Borowski, Precision’s operations and service manager, and
Morse’s right hand.

However,
Morse had a vision, and it didn’t include the new construction market.

“It was
holding us back,” Morse says. His vision of growth, though, didn’t gel with his
partner’s, and eventually Morse bought out his partner’s half of the business,
got out of new construction, and focused 100 percent on plumbing service.

“It was
scary being on my own, but exciting. I’ve always preferred doing things my
way,” Matt states. The initial few years out of that market, though, took a
toll. They did decent, but not great. Sales dropped, but the company held firm.

Precision Training Manager Randy Drumhiller presides over the weekly operational and customer service meetings. The LEGO blocks are stacked to help the team visualize their performance for the quarter.

Training Turnaround

In 2000, after a
smooth transition to new and bigger offices in a neighboring town, Morse began
to work on his business
instead of in
it (though he tells me to this day he’s willing to jump in a truck and dig a
hole if needed). He joined Nexstar (then known as Contractors2000), and he
overhauled the way he managed his company - employees, marketing, financial and
customer relations.

“We did
an about-face with employees,” Morse says. Since customer service had become
priority No. 1, technician training was paramount. “You’re only as good as
who’s running the job.”

In 2003, his service managers underwent Al Levi’s Staffing Power! training
program. In addition to that, he took full advantage of Nexstar’s programs and
resources, and invited various business and training consultants to his office,
including Nexstar's Jim Hamilton and
mentor Matt Smith.

“Matt Smith is a sales- and manager-training
monster,” Morse laughs. “He is all about building trust and value with the
customers and a strong advocate of training the managers to holding
accountable.”

Levi
helped Morse put together and implement Precision’s operating manuals, which allows
the employees to fully understand the game they are playing, and ultimately
adds a level of consistency to the way the company operates.

“There are a million great ideas out there,”
says Levi. “But only about half get started and even less get completed.” With
Levi’s Planning Power! training, Morse was able to focus on the top five
priorities, and then work to get them implemented.

One of the priorities was developing its
in-house training system, now headed by Precision Team Trainer Randy Drumhiller.

Levi’s Staffing Power! model comes in two
forms: apprentice to junior tech training, and senior tech to field supervisor.
The mission is to get the apprentices up to speed to become producing
technicians, while the field supervisors are responsible for leading and supporting
their team’s sales, operational and technical standards.

Drumhiller’s task is to work with the
apprentices and develop a plan for a fully functional training center where the
apprentices practice their craft in-house rather than in a customer’s home.

“Randy will take a guy out of a truck if he
needs to be retrained,” Morse explains.

I saw Drumhiller in action first-hand
earlier that day at the shop’s weekly operational and customer service meeting
held in Precision’s training room in its newest digs in Lombard. He held court
in front of 20 or so technicians and managers, where he reviewed any
housekeeping concerns - from customer warranties, to truck stock and inventory,
to semantics and the phrase “my pleasure” vs. “you’re welcome” or “no problem.”

“It’s the little things we do that stand out
to our audience,” says Morse.

Then I
watched as he let Precision’s three field supervisors break out with their
teams of five to six guys to discuss the sales reports and goals from the
previous week. In true Ellen Rohr
fashion, the employees treat their weekly goals as a game, where increased
production from each team allows a corresponding number of colored LEGO blocks
to build a tower of success for the quarter. It is a visual representation of
how each team has contributed to overall shop performance.

I asked Morse about the blocks and he
explained the game: “The important number is not revenue, it’s sold hours and
close rate. I don’t want the guys obsessed with the high-ticket jobs. If the
sold hours are being satisfied, then so is the revenue needed to operate and
grow the company. The higher number of close rates means we’re not missing any
opportunities with customers.”

He quickly drew an equilateral triangle -
all sides of equal length - on the paper in front of me. At each corner he
wrote a word - Customer, Precision, Employee - with arrows moving counter-clockwise.

“When
Precision takes care of its employees,” he moved his pen, “they take care of
our customers. The happy customers, in turn, take care of Precision,” Morse
completed the graphic.

So how does Precision take care of its
employees? Not only do they receive the best pay and the best benefits around,
as well as the advantages of a four-day workweek, Precision employees don’t
have to guess at how they’re doing - they already know.

“The one thing I’ve learned is that
employees don’t want to feel like a number; they want to feel like family. And
they want recognition, appreciation and reward. We work very hard to maintain
the culture here to retain the best people.”

Through
the company’s goals and games, or “Dot Program,” as it’s labeled, each technician
knows his score - and everyone else’s, too. It is a visual performance
indicator, which at a glance can identify who is and who is not hitting their
billable hour minimums.

A red dot depicts falling short of the sold
hour minimum, a black dot represents the minimum requirement was met, and gold
and platinum stars indicate that billable hour minimums were greatly exceeded.

The teams “compete” in these games for group
prizes decided by the winners (anything from White Sox tickets to a day at Six
Flags).

From the game’s written instructions: “The
purpose is to recognize those that are hitting their goals, and implement
coaching and accountability for those that aren’t. Below monthly minimum
billable hour standard ‘Red Dots’ display the need for the individual to seek
coaching to improve their results.”

The knowledge of where they stand in the
company feeds the feeling of loyalty, and also personal accountability among
the employees. This is especially important as a technician looks to his future
with Precision, and how the company’s standards affect his advancement from
field technician on to management positions.

New Endeavors

However, all this success and achievement with
Precision is not enough for Morse. He is the first to tell you that he is
rarely satisfied with status quo. “I don’t like to compare my company to other
plumbing companies,” he tells me, as we hedge on the subject of his
competition. “I prefer to compare Precision’s customer service to successful
companies in all
industries.”

In the
forefront of his continued vision is the fairly new Kangarooter™ drain cleaning
segment of the company.

“It is
something I’ve always wanted to do,” Morse says. From the first bite of the digging/sewer bug in his early years in the
industry, he’s wanted to take drain cleaning service to a whole new level.
Getting to the heart of the matter, Morse confesses that “Precision” always
felt like someone else’s company (since it was first started by his long-ago
partner). To be able to start from scratch a whole new company - with its own
name, own financials, own trucks, marketing and customers - the pull was too
strong to ignore.

So once Precision was a well-oiled machine,
with systems and services in place, Morse could finally devote time and effort into
building his drain-cleaning “empire.”

Since February 2005, the trademarked
Kangarooter segment has operated its own two trucks within the parameters of
Precision Plumbing Services.

Morse has so far kept the financials and
marketing budgets under one roof, but he’s hoping that will change.

“Precision will always remain the perceived
‘expert’ and ‘technical’ side of the plumbing business, but I wanted a separate
name and look to Kangarooter that would make it stand out from the rest.”

In his research of this new endeavor, what
he found was that customers would call Precision for plumbing service, and when
a technician informed them that they did drain cleaning, too, the customers
were surprised. “I didn’t know you did that,” most would say.

Morse
acknowledges that the “stigma” of a sewer or rooter company is one that is perceived
as separate from a “regular” fixture replacement or leaky-pipe plumbing
company. This behavior of customers to mentally separate the two was
encouraging to Morse. He had found a niche in which his professional, trained
technicians could shine.

When drain-cleaning calls came in to
Precision, he would send out a technician in the Kangarooter-wrapped truck. The
customers barely noticed that the “Precision” name was not prominent on the
vehicle. “They didn’t even flinch or bat an eyelash, as long as the technician
represented himself as a professional, and the nuisance was handled,” Morse
tells me.

“People either look to hire a plumber or a
drain cleaner, rarely thinking that the two could be one and the same,” Morse
says. “So I’ve just run with the way people naturally think. Is it radical?
Maybe. There are a lot of doubters out there when I tell them what I want to do
with Kangarooter, but they can laugh all they want - I’m confident this is
going to be huge.”

The
bright orange of the Kangarooter trucks with the friendly and conscientious
animal on them (notice the kangaroo has it’s shirt tucked into its
pouch, and booties on its large feet) are hard to miss on the road. The logo
was part of a well-thought-out collaboration between Morse, his designer ...
and his daughter.

“She was
very helpful, telling me [the kangaroo] looked too stern, or too goofy. We
fiddled with it for a long time. But I think we’ve gotten it just right.”

There is now a stand-out, separate toll-free
number for this segment (866-GO-KANGA), and Precision CSRs are trained to
handle the calls. Its own Web site (www.kangarooter.com) and catchy radio
jingle further separate it from Precision.

It offers “Service in Minutes, Not Days,”
and Nu Flow sewer relining.

All the hard work seems to be paying off, as
Morse informs me that call volume has increased each year the trucks have been
on the road.

“Having
the two companies has produced the best margins for us,” he says.

The Precision Plumbing Services and Kangarooter team.

What's Next?

Branching out is a logical next step for Matt Morse
and his team, and Levi has confidence: “Matt has certainly grown up in the
business, and is wonderful at creating a vision and making it happen.”

As Morse has provided the opportunities for
his employees to grow within the company, opening up the second - or third -
shop in his service area could be a breeze, because the operation manual is in
place and his team knows what is expected of them.

Since Precision is right outside Chicago (“I
don’t even want to think about that
area yet,” he says), Morse will probably branch to the northern
suburbs and possibly south. He’s also not discounting other states.

And what
about Kangarooter? Will it be built to sell one day? Even Morse is not yet
sure. “I’m always open-minded to exploring new opportunities. I know there are
people watching what I’m doing with Kangarooter. Waiting to see if my model
will work,” he says. “For now, franchising or selling that part of the business
isn’t what I’m working toward. If I want to succeed, I need more immediate
goals in mind.”

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